#1) I'd like to see Knight develop his pick & roll game. That's essentially what the half-court offense in today's NBA is. He's got two great partners in Drummond and Monroe to work on this with. He needs to improve as a passer in these situations. And more importantly, he needs to be a threat by being able to hit pull up J's off the dribble - something he hasn't shown much ability to do yet. And, also in this sense, I just want to see him handling the ball more in the half-court offense. Being a floor general. Running the offense. Exploring options. Running the show. He needs to be a little more comfortable with the ball to do that at this level I think.

#2) He's an incredible athlete. I want to see him leading us in transition far more often. Attacking the basket and getting to the line in transition. He's got the athleticism of a D-Rose to do that. He needs to adopt the attitude. Passing on the break near the basket is big for him too.

#3) He's absolutely awful defensively - no one else has mentioned this. Everyone blows by him. It's a matter of fundamentals and hard work to a large extent. He needs to play lower. He needs to be more focused/serious on the defensive end.

#4) He needs to put on a ton of muscle. He's just as tall as Chauncey, but he lacks all of his interior game. This, to a large extent, also includes his ability to just be able to drive by people and get closer looks at the basket...not just talking about backing people down.

#5) He needs his outside shot to be more consistent.

...That's an awful lot for a point guard to need to work on, isn't it? It sounds almost like taking an NFL WR and saying he has potential to be a great NBA PG, but he needs to develop ALL of the point guard skills. Can he do it? Sure. But..I'm not quite as optimistic as many of you seem to be.

He also wasn't a top 3 pick... so why are we expecting him to play like a top 3 pick with 5 years of exp.... Is he going to be a Hall of famer? Doubtful... Will he be all NBA first team? doubtful... Can he make an all star game at some point? Maybe......

I have seen a ton of progress in his 1 plus year, and he is a hard worker. So I highly doubt he'll ever have a Bust tag put on him. He will be a quality starting PG in the league I think and when we get a sharpshooter in the backcourt to team with him I think you'll see a marked improvement in his game.

I am totally over Stuckey however... trade him for a bag of popcorn for Joe to eat at this point, I don't like the way his body "talks", he seems to be in the same mode that the whole team was 2 years ago. Thinks a ton more of himself then anybody else but maybe his mother does.

Hmm, nope, I don't remember Danny Ainge offering that trade. Are you sure about that?

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KGREG's right.
Rondo could droppin' dimes in the 'D' if Joe would have pulled the trigger.

The irony is that the Celts have moved on from Allen and are still paying Rondo to be one of the best floor generals in the assocation.
...On the other hand, Dumars has moved on from Rip and is still paying him to be a Chicago Bull.
He's also paying (RE-signed!) Stuck and Tay well above market value to absolutely SUCK BUTT this season! (I appologize in advance if "suck butt" triggers the curse filter)

KGREG's right.
Rondo could droppin' dimes in the 'D' if Joe would have pulled the trigger.

The irony is that the Celts have moved on from Allen and are still paying Rondo to be one of the best floor generals in the assocation.
...On the other hand, Dumars has moved on from Rip and is still paying him to be a Chicago Bull.
He's also paying (RE-signed!) Stuck and Tay well above market value to absolutely SUCK BUTT this season! (I appologize in advance if "suck butt" triggers the curse filter)

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I'm going to have to politely ask for a source on this "offer" that Ainge made to Joe D.

It was reported on right here. There's a thread. It was a rumor and There was something weird where the offer wasn't made to Joe or it was made by an Ainge staffer and not Ainge himself.

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That is my point. There was a rumor that a staffer made a trade offer and the talks went nowhere. Then three years later Ainge made this offer that Joe rejected and GOSH JOE WHY DID YOU HANG UP ON DANNY AINGE LIKE THAT?????

That is my point. There was a rumor that a staffer made a trade offer and the talks went nowhere. Then three years later Ainge made this offer that Joe rejected and GOSH JOE WHY DID YOU HANG UP ON DANNY AINGE LIKE THAT?????

People were wary of taking on Ray Allen here because of his age or something. After all the crap that's happened here since then, that seems ridiculous now.

Rondo could've been Isaiah 2.0 here with his angry competitiveness.

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At the time Ray was a $20M expiring contact, so we would have gotten a real stud at PG with some serious cap Space. Keep in mind that we still had Arron Afflalo on the roster. We basically would be playing with an Afflao/Rondo backcourt right now as opposed to arguably the worst backcourt in the entire NBA. Now all of this happened in the summer of 2009, the same summer where we brought in Ben Gordon and BoT. The same summer where Joe drafted Austin Daye, Summers, Jonas and Chase Budinger. In this same summer we gave away Afflalo to Denver for NOTHING and we gave away Budinger to Houston for NOTHING! The overall track record of Joe's screw ups are now tipping the scales against him.

At the time Ray was a $20M expiring contact, so we would have gotten a real stud at PG with some serious cap Space. Keep in mind that we still had Arron Afflalo on the roster. We basically would be playing with an Afflao/Rondo backcourt right now as opposed to arguably the worst backcourt in the entire NBA.

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Yup, without CCG and Ben Gordon and possibly our yet to be surrendered draft pick.

Rondo isn't a great shooter so that can't be why Joe didn't do the deal. He fits his model. (If he even turned it down.)

Cap space and trades is how they'll get non-rookie talent to Detroit. Houston would do this deal.

He also wasn't a top 3 pick... so why are we expecting him to play like a top 3 pick with 5 years of exp.... Is he going to be a Hall of famer? Doubtful... Will he be all NBA first team? doubtful... Can he make an all star game at some point? Maybe......

I have seen a ton of progress in his 1 plus year, and he is a hard worker. So I highly doubt he'll ever have a Bust tag put on him. He will be a quality starting PG in the league I think and when we get a sharpshooter in the backcourt to team with him I think you'll see a marked improvement in his game.

I am totally over Stuckey however... trade him for a bag of popcorn for Joe to eat at this point, I don't like the way his body "talks", he seems to be in the same mode that the whole team was 2 years ago. Thinks a ton more of himself then anybody else but maybe his mother does.

So, this is what our roster could have looked like heading into the summer of '09 had we made that trade...before we hired Kuester...before we signed Gordon, Villanueva, Wilcox, B. Wallace and C. Atkins...before we drafted Daye, Summers, Jerebko and Budinger (and before we gave him away for nothing)...before we traded Afflalo, Amir and Sharpe away for nothing...before we let Sheed, Dyess, Herrmann, Acker walk as FA's.

Talk about a bad off-season. Talk about a turning point for a franchise.

$17.2m in total salary!?!?! In the history of the salary cap there hasn't been a team with that much cap space!! And what did we have?? A super-star young point guard. A young top-50 player-to-be at shooting guard. And an average-ish young starting power forward.

The entire '09 Free Agent class was garbage. So, sign some one year stop-gaps, you do the best you can, you wait a season...and you add THREE MAX FA'S to that group. LBJ, Wade and Bosh probably go to Miami no matter what. Dirk probably doesn't leave Dallas (though, perhaps?). Joe Johnson, of course we could have gotten him. Amare Stoudemire, probably - there was nothing in New York when he went there. Tyson Chandler, of course - and he wouldn't have even been close to max.

So many variables to live in what if and might have beens.... hindsight is always to clear.... Think if we can go back and redraft for the last 15 years.... I have us winning every Title since 04.

I'll worry about how to fix the mess we have now, not be thining about coulda beens..... At the time most of us were MUCH higher on Stuckey then Rondo... So the trade would have been for cap space only without the crystal ball.

The entire '09 Free Agent class was garbage. So, sign some one year stop-gaps, you do the best you can, you wait a season...and you add THREE MAX FA'S to that group. LBJ, Wade and Bosh probably go to Miami no matter what. Dirk probably doesn't leave Dallas (though, perhaps?). Joe Johnson, of course we could have gotten him. Amare Stoudemire, probably - there was nothing in New York when he went there. Tyson Chandler, of course - and he wouldn't have even been close to max.

Trey Burke, I think, is going to be an outstanding NBA point guard. I'd like to see us trade up out of the second round to grab him as an insurance policy in the draft this summer. As well as replace Bynum with an experienced veteran who could teach the two.